Bonus: The Elizabeth Taylor Jewelry Collection

When Elizabeth Taylor died last March, every Hollywood trade publication had beautiful black and white pictures of her on their covers, with tributes to her iconic life, crusading philanthropy and legendary film career. After the initial eulogies, they started talking about her other, and most fabulous legacy: her jewels.

Unlike most stars these days who just borrow their jewels for the red carpet, Liz Taylor actually had an impressive private collection. When her estate announced that every single piece of her collection was going to be auctioned off, my boss (who is a fan of anything old-school Hollywood glam) and I obsessed together over the auction catalog. The Taylor-Burton diamond, the Taj Mahal diamond, the Mike Todd diamond chandelier earrings, la Peregrina (the legendary pearl), the ping-pong diamond rings... not to mention the sapphires, Cartier rubies and Bulgari emeralds. We read stories about where each of the jewels came from - most were from her ex-husbands (and she had 7 of them, so you can imagine how much jewelry they bought her) and others were bought for her by the studios she worked for (given to her on the first day on set, to "guarantee" from her that she would be well-behaved and keep her diva-demands in check during filming). True to Taylor's over-the-top lifestyle, these jewels are all larger-than-life. She actually wore her 33-carat diamond ring from husband Richard Burton every day. Women these days just aren't on her level.

And then it was announced that before the jewelry collection went on auction at Christie's in New York, it would be going on a 7-city exhibition around the world, with a stop in Los Angeles at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I went online and bought 4 tickets before I even knew who to go with. For $20 each, Marsha, Barbara, my mom and I got to see all the famed gems, plus other artifacts like a script from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, all 3 of her Academy Awards, 2 original "Liz" Warhols, and some fabulous 70's and 80's couture.

Since words can't really do a 33-carat internally flawless diamond justice, I will just post the pictures. There are other beautiful (professional) pictures you can look at here. Overall, the experience was once-in-a-lifetime and I am SO GLAD I was able to see the famed collection in person!

The Taylor-Burton diamond. 33.19 carats, internally flawless. Given to Liz by Richard Burton for their first marriage.

La Peregrina, or "the legendary pearl" was once part of the crown jewels of Spain. Now it sits in a Cartier-designed necklace of pearls, diamonds and rubies.

The Mike Todd diamond chandeliers. He was her 3rd husband.

The Taj Mahal diamond, given to Liz for her 40th birthday by Burton. This necklace is from the 1600s and the gold and ruby chain is by Cartier.

The Bulgari emerald suite - another gift from Burton. This guy really knew how to give gifts!

Necklace from the Bulgari emerald suite. These gems were my favorite because they were so clear and deep green.

Cartier ruby bracelet.

Diamond and amethyst "Triphanes" necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels.

An original Andy Warhol "Liz"

Marsha, me and Barb soaking in all the fabulousness!

#11: The Playboy Mansion

When I was in college I was pretty obsessed with the show The Girls Next Door. The only celebrity autograph I keep on my bulletin board is from Bridget Marquardt (on a Sprinkles cupcake box lid, no less), and Kendra is still one of my favorite current reality stars. At one point, my college roommate Liz and I decided our new life "goal" was to become Hef's girlfriends so that we could live and play in the Playboy Mansion.

When I moved to LA, seeing the Playboy Mansion was one of the first things on my list to do. But it certainly isn't very easy! I knew that the chances of me getting an invite to one of their parties were pre-tty slim, but luckily, my friend Tracy's brother Gabe is a chef at the Mansion and offered me a tour a long time ago. I finally took him up on the offer, and brought along Ronny, my friend Jaclyn (who is one of Tracy's best friends) and Jac's mom, Susan.

We drove over to the Mansion on an early Saturday morning. I was shocked how close the Mansion actually is to places I go to all the time! I guess it's easy to forget that it is actually a house, in a normal (though rich) neighborhood in Hollywood. Gabe met us in the front of the Mansion, and though we weren't allowed to actually go in the house, he showed us all around the grounds. The place is a complete labyrinth! I'll let the pictures do the talking from here.

Here's the entrance of the Mansion, with Hef's new girlfriend's BMW out front.

The interior of the game room, full of vintage arcade games, all with Playboy themes!

On every table surface were current issues of the magazine.

Next, Gabe took us through the aviary, which was converted from a greenhouse. Apparently Hef loves exotic birds, and owns dozens of parrots, peacocks, and even a toucan!

There were several peacocks roaming around in the backyard, including two albino peacocks. They loved showing off for us!

Me and Ronny striking a pose in the backyard.

Main pool in the backyard. On the other side of the bridge is a koi pond.

Inside the famous "grotto"

Ronny was not excited at all to be in the grotto... :)

Jaclyn and her mom inside the grotto. They took pictures and kept sending them to Jac's dad to make him "jealous"

My car parked outside the Playboy Mansion, no big deal!

We also saw the tennis court, the guest house, the monkey cages, the pool house, the slip-n-slide hill (primed and ready for the 4th of July party!) and we even snuck into a few places I'm not supposed to tell about! It was an AWESOME experience, and I am very grateful for friends that help me cross things off my list!!

#28: Burlesque show on the Sunset Strip

My friend Barbara insisted last year that we see the movie "Burlesque." I knew it was going to be a hot sequined mess of a movie, but I still went just to see what kinds of songs they would have Christina Aguilera singing. I was right-on with my assessment of the movie (it was basically a low-budget version of "Chicago") but regardless, the music numbers were fun and flirty, and it got me thinking. The whole movie centered around this down-on-its-luck burlesque club on the Sunset Strip. But inside the club looked glitzy and expensive, and I wondered, do clubs like this actually exist? I thought it might actually be pretty fun to see a strip-tease burlesque show, complete with feathers, sequins, and maybe even a bit of T&A.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I was at home sick and finally catching up on the dozen Chelsea Lately episodes in my DVR. The first show I watched had guest Dita von Teese. For those of you who don't know who she is, she is probably the world's most famous burlesque performer (certainly the only one I know by name). She splits her time between Los Angeles and Paris, but only does a few shows a year in LA. I thought it was a pipe dream to ever see her perform, but here she was, on Chelsea Lately, announcing TWO shows at the Roxy Theater on the Sunset Strip in mid-May. Bingo!

I immediately texted Barbara, my burlesque partner-in-crime, and told her we we going.

When the night of the show finally arrived, we made our way down Sunset Blvd over to the Roxy. I've heard about this club several times, along with the other clubs nearby like the Troubadour, Whiskey-A-Go-Go, the Viper Room, Rainbow Room, etc etc. I've never been to any of them, nor have I ever wanted to, because when I read the Motley Crue autobiography years ago, they went into detail about how dirty and dingy these clubs are, and I have it on good authority that none of them have really changed.

There was already a line forming outside for the 7pm show, so we got our tickets from will-call and hopped in line. When we made it into the club we got drinks, carved out a good spot to stand, and waited. We thought the show would start at 7, apparently the show actually started at 8:30. I was so glad I had worn flats! (I learned a long time ago to NEVER wear heels to a general-admission show, I don't care how fancy the place is, the pain is never worth it!).

When the lights finally went down, the gender-ambiguous host came out, got the crowd excited, and introduced Dita von Teese. It was immediately apparent to me why this woman is the world's most well-known burlesque performer. She was captivating, mesmerizing, and very, very good at what she does. For her first number she did her famous martini-glass performance. She started in a full suit (complete with top hat!), while dancing and lip-syncing to a 40s-esque song about liking a man who takes his time. She slowly revealed more and more skin, eventually ending up in a corset. Dita is a very thin woman, but after years of wearing corsets, she can get her waist in a corset down to 16 inches. 16 inches!!! It's a sight to see for sure. After the corset came off, she climbed into the big martini glass and squeezed a big sponge full of water all over herself. Yowza.

The crowd went wild.

Then we saw several other performances. We watched a Russian girl named Lada from the Crazy Horse is Paris do acrobatics on a huge heart-shaped apparatus, a spicy Latina named La Cholita shimmy like her life depended on it in a hot pink chiquita-banana outfit, and an Elvis-inspired number. Then Dita came on again!

This number was another one of her "signature" dances, where she is on-pointe in ballet shoes, dancing in and around a 8-foot tall makeup compact. She started out in a big fluffy tutu that mimicked the pad for the compact, and ended up practically naked covered in a cloud of powder. Obviously, my favorite performance of the night.

Then we saw more acts. Another from the Russian, then one from a full-figured black woman who jumped in the air and landed in the splits (how do people DO that!?) and then an audience-participation dance-off. The host pulled none other than PRINCE POPPYCOCK from the audience (anyone who saw last season's America's Got Talent knows who I'm talking about) who actually won 2nd place with his flamboyant outfit and moves. The guy who won first was drunk out of his mind and took his pants off... but I don't think this is the kind of contest one wants to win.

We were then treated to a performance by Raja, drag-queen extraordinaire and winner of the most recent season of Ru Paul's Drag Race (my guiltiest of all guilty pleasure reality show obsessions). She lip-synced FOR HER LIFE to that song "whatever Lola wants, Lola gets" and pranced around with a 2-foot tall bright yellow showgirl headdress.

As my feet started to ache, Dita came on for the grand finale. She came out housed in a stage-sized pagoda, and danced seductively around with a giant fan. She twirled from ropes inside the pagoda, did splits in the air, and by the end of the show there wasn't any person in that audience that wasn't a little bit in love with and in awe of her.

Some of you may be wondering about the level of nudity in the show. Though there was definitely a LOT of skin, the women always wore sparkly panties and pasties. Even without the full nudity, the tassels, teases and seductive moving were more than enough to make this R-rated and very, very sensual. In other words, it was awesome.

I really look forward to seeing her perform again. It was honestly one of the best Wednesday nights I've had lately (right up there with my Drag Queen Bingo Wednesday night!). I loved that even though I paid to see one performer, I saw about 10 different burlesque acts all performing their own take on the style. It was very much like the movie that inspired this bucket-list item, but way, way better (and way more scandalous) in real-life. I would highly recommend a show like this to anyone who has an open mind, doesn't mind seeing girls take off their clothes, and is willing to surrender their current girl-crush over to Dita von Teese.

I always use will-call to get real tickets!

My favorite performance of the night!

Me and Barb getting our burlesque on!

#21: Drag Queen Bingo at Hamburger Mary's

I have to say, this was one of the items on my list that I was MOST looking forward to.

I first heard about Drag Queen Bingo from my fabulous friend Jacob who introduced me to a drag queen named Miss Barbie Que who told me she sometimes calls bingo at Hamburger Mary's on Wednesdays.

Say whaaaaah?? Drag queens... bingo... hamburgers... sign me up!!

I decided to go over to Hamburger Mary's in West Hollywood on a lovely Wednesday night in February. My amazing friends Meaghan and Tracy came with me for the festivities. There are two bingo shows each night - one at 7:00 and one at 9:30. We opted for the later show since I had to work late that night. So when we got the Hamburger Mary's, we had to wait in line a bit outside for the first show to end. After a few minutes they sat us, and we immediately ordered big margaritas (I got a "Skinny Bitch" which was pretty strong and delicious). Tracy and I decided to split a table of sliders, which was a great idea because we got to sample each of their specialty burgers.

After we ordered we signed up for bingo, paid $20 per person (100% of the proceeds go to featured charities, that night it was the Trevor Project) and got our cards. Each person gets a pack of 10 bingo cards, plus 2 smaller cards to play for special prizes at the end. We got our markers and were good to go!

Then our Bingo Madame of the evening came out. Her name was Bridgette of Madison County and she was feisty!!! She taught us some of the call backs like "I-29... Yes I am, and holding!" and "O-68... you do me and I'll owe you one!" Our first game was going to be traditional bingo, any 5 spots in a row would win.

Bridgette: What do we play?

Crowd: BINGO!!

Bridgette: And how do we play it?

Crowd: LOUUDDLLLYYYY!!!

So we played the first game, and much to our delight when we lost, they made the winner run through the crowd while we crumpled up our losing cards and threw them at the winner!

The 2nd game, we were going to play "tops and bottoms" meaning you had to get the whole top row, or whole bottom row. Pretty soon into the game, I had 4 of the top spots on my card filled. Oh hell yeah, I might just win bingo for the first time in my life!! All I needed was B-14. So when I heard Bridgette shout out "In order to date Roman Polanski, you have to.... B-14!!!" I pretty much screamed BINGOOOO!!!! and ran to the front of the restaurant. Bridgette congratulated me on being a "top." Unfortunately, another girl had gotten bingo with me as well... so for the tie-break Bridgette had two bingo balls in her hand and said "GRAB MY BALLS!" so we each took one, and the person with the highest number would win. I had 74 (highest number in bingo is 75) so I was pretty certain I had won. AND I WON!!!!!!!! So then I had to do my very own run of shame through the restaurant, getting pelted by loser cards from every direction. As I ran past my table, Tracy and Meg had no shame about chucking theirs at me too! (Even though Tracy was SO stoked that I won!). When I made it back up to the front, Bridgette presented me with my prize... as she prefaced it, "the BEST prize of the night!" I won the "Disney Basket" complete with some Disney DVDs, a Disney autograph book with pen, a mickey-ears hat, and 2 tickets to Disneyland!!! The rest of the night, the prizes weren't nearly as good. I could hardly believe my good luck :)

The next few games we played were a bit different.. we played "M for Mary" where bingo was having a big M on your board, and a fan favorite, "pork and beans" where you have to basically get the shape of a penis on your card to win. During that game, a girl called bingo, but when she went up to claim her prize, Bridgette saw that she didn't actually have bingo. So she made the false-bingo caller put her hands on a table and bend over, and Bridgette spanked her (HARD!) with a small whip! The girl thought it was going to be funny but when you heard the CRACK of the whip... we all felt a bit sorry for her, even if she did try to cheat at bingo!

I already knew that this night was going to be one of the most fun Wednesdays I had ever had, but I didn't even have any IDEA how rad it was going to end up. It's such a great feeling to go into something with high expectations, and STILL be completely blown away. Of course, WINNING didn't hurt that at all, but my girlfriends who I was with still had a ton of fun even though they didn't win. I cannot wait to go back again, support a charity, yell really loudly, throw things at people, and drink a strong margarita. This is a definite MUST-DO for all Angelenos and friends visiting on Wednesdays!!

Oh and PS- they bring you your bill in a high heel shoe. Love it!

Me with my winnings - thanks to Tracy for insisting I take photographic evidence!!